What are you reading?

[Mellow]

I've recently re-read "Evolving the Alien" (very absorbing) , the Alexei Leonov / David Scott space race book (the name of which currently escapes me, sorry) and also Terry Pratchett's new book "Nation".... (made me cry at the end)

I'm currently reading "Things my girlfriend and I have argued about" , not as good as his newspaper column.

[ineluki]

At the moment:

http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Pe...6324422&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/High-Lord-Blac...6324522&sr=1-1

[Doodler]

I finally broke down and read Sandworms of Dune. Yeah, Deus ex Machina all over the place, but at least I finished it. I've been eyeballing another novel they wrote which bridges the time between Dune and Dune: Messiah, but I dunno...

[torque of the town]

Engleby by Sebastian Faulks, this author never disappoints IMHO.

[Certassar]

"Feersum Endjinn" by Iain M. Banks.

[tdvance]

Sphere packings, Lattices, and Groups, by JH Conway and Neil Sloane.

But in the fiction department, decided to try out Man Kzin wars book 1 (already read The Warriers, the first story, as part of some other collection).

[Gillianren]

Almost America: From the Colonists to Clinton: a "WHAT IF" History of the US. Next, I will be reading Folklore of Discworld.

[matthewota]

I am reading Phil Plait's "Death from the Skies", and I hope his next book will be "Bad Astronomy Volume II"

This thread was inspired a similar one over the Starship Modeler forum.


Over the past few months I've read Eric Dietz Halo: the Flood, Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer, and I've started on Carl sagan's Contact.

For school I read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albon, soon we will be starting Night by Elie Wiesel.

[John Jaksich]

I am currently reading two books: Carl Sagan's The Varieties of Scientific Experience, A Personal View of the Search for God & a fairly recent biography based on recently published letters and documents of Albert Einstein--entitled: Einstein by Jurgen Neffe.

[geonuc]

Almost America: From the Colonists to Clinton: a "WHAT IF" History of the US.

What do you think of the book, so far?

[Nadme]

soon we will be starting Night by Elie Wiesel.

That is a very harrowing book to read. Have read other Holocaust/WWII-related books as well.

In recent years I've read a lot of history regarding the 18th century Enlightenment. Ayn Rand. Machiavelli.

Currently I'm relaxing with a slew of Gothic Romance novels. Its height of popularity was the 1950s - mid-70s. Generally fiction is not my thing, but I have fallen in with this genre.

[KaiYeves]

I've been reading Cry, the Beloved Country for school. The descriptions of the African velt are so beautiful.

[peter eldergill]

I'm reading Phil's Death From the Skies as well

But I'm also reading a book by a local Toronto author (non-fiction) about his 2 year experience teaching in a foreign country in the 80's

I'm also "reading", very slowly, Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, but that will probably take me a vary long time

World of Warcraft tends to get in the way a bit..heh

Pete

[Gillianren]

What do you think of the book, so far?

I think it's pretty good. He actually manages to convince me that there would be widespread social significance if TR had successfully banned college football. (Not that he seriously tried to. But he threatened to, if certain reforms were not put in place.) The author, Steve Tally, presents the history as it did happen, speculation as to how it could have happened, and an analysis of why the way it worked made the changes it did. Fascinating stuff, even when I'm not sure I agree with him.

[Disinfo Agent]

The Hobbit, but I haven't much time to read at the moment.
Don't tell me how it ends.

[SkepticJ]

Anathem-Neal Stephenson

It's a tour de force; the man never fails to write amazing novels.

[Wolf1066]

Across a Billion Years - Robert Silverberg.

I last read it around 30 years ago.

Wandered into the local second-hand bookshop in the hopes of leafing through some SF anthologies to see if I could find the story I've been looking for. Found no anthologies at all but I found Across a Billion Years, so I bought it.

[Alasdhair]

Via Brave New World I'm now at Death From The Skies too.

I hope Gillian finds The Folklore of Discworld as interesting as I did...

[Gillianren]

I was very pleased with it, yes. I can heartily recommend it to anyone who studies folklore or is interested in the Discworld; one need not care about both in order to find the material interesting.

[Kelfazin]

Currently reading Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds and re-reading the Harry Potter books. Haven't been reading nearly as much as usual lately; I'm back in school, plus working full time. Not much time for anything else these days.

I loved all the Revelation Space books and just finished Chasm City (which I though was great right up until the very last scene. I hated the ending, it seemed like such a cop out)

Currently reading Hidden Empire (The Saga of Seven Suns Book 1) by Kevin J. Anderson. It's not my favorite book, not really getting that vested in the story.

[loglo]

Un Lun Dun by China Mieville.

His first "kids" book but still with lots of imagination and weirdness and still fairly dark (but tame compared to eg "The Iron Council".)

What is it with English writers these days? Did they forget happy pills, or has it become even gloomier there since I last left 15 years ago?

[slang]

Janissaries, by Jerry Pournelle, into the sequel actually. A couple more of his "Soldier in SF environment" stories, like Falkenberg's Legion. Good stuff if you like the genre.

[iquestor]

Anyone else here an absolute fanatic for Stephen R Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series?

[Gemini]

Robert Heinlein's A Tunnel in the Sky.

[tdvance]

I just finished "Eaters of the Dead" by Michael Crichton. It's better than the name makes you think! It's a "what if": what if the legend of Beowulf is based on real events? The story is a fictional account of what "really" might have happened. The other big "what if" is--what if a small population of neanderthals survived into the 1st millennium AD, in the remote northern parts of Scandinavia. It is told from the point of view of an Arab, kidnapped by the vikings who fight the neanderthal "grendels", who eventually sympathizes with his captors and earns their respect as a hero in battle.

[geonuc]

Anyone else here an absolute fanatic for Stephen R Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series?

I was in the '70's. Good reading while on board the sub.

[Paul Beardsley]

Anyone else here an absolute fanatic for Stephen R Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series?

I used to be, back when I was waiting for White Gold Wielder to come out in hardback.

I've not read the third series, although people have urged me to. It's been a long time since I read the other books, and I'm worried that I will have changed too much to enjoy them now.

[some dumb kid]

i finished reading physics of the impossible so decided t read a novel im currently in the middle of monster 1959 wich is a fantastic book for fans of giant monster movies

[Disinfo Agent]

I started reading Dawkins' The God Delusion, but lost interest rather quickly.

[tdvance]

Started rereading "Footfall" by Larry Niven--it's one of Niven's "Farnham's Freehold" type novels (he was clearly a Heinlein fan--oh yeah, Heinlein is in the story!). It's a case of first contact with a war-of-the-world's type invading species, except not quite as smart as the mobile brains of wotw.